Chuck Larsen

Jacob had a relatively mild healing in his relationship with his uncle and father-in-law, Laban. Among the hills of Gilead that found the healing balm of forgiveness of sorts and Laban hugged and kissed his children farewell and wish Jacob the best. Yes, Jeremiah, there is a balm in Gilead. But when Jacob heard that his brother was coming to meet him with 400 soldiers, Genesis 32:7 says that Jacob panicked and “was greatly afraid and disturbed.” He then divided the people who were with him , and the flocks and the herds and camels, into two camps.” How soon we forget the lessons about God’s protection of us when people intend us harm. Jacob didn’t know what to expect from his brother who had pledged to kill him for stealing Isaac’s blessing from him. Rebekah had sent Jacob away telling him that when Esau’s anger subsides, she will send for him and tell him it’s safe to come home. Jacob never heard from Rebekah, so he was taking a huge chance.

Can you imagine the joy Jacob felt at their first encounter? Genesis 33:4 tells us, “But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” They “wept”!! Duh!! We all know what it is like to be estranged from family members. Our root connections with family are deeply ingrained and we long to be reconciled when relationships are broken. This is what it was like for Jacob. He wanted to go home. Jacob did not have to go through his brother’s territory to go home, but he chose to do so only after wrestling with God all night long. Obviously he wanted to put things right with the brother he had cheated. Barnhouse used to say “the way to up is down, and the way to down is up.” Meaning that God will humble those who exalt themselves, but will exalt those who humble themselves. Jacob humbled himself before his brother Esau by bowing down seven times before him. Ogilvie says that even though Jacob did not know Christ’s teaching about “first be reconciled to your brother” (Matthew 5:24), “he showed sensitivity to the necessity of this kind of action.” Because of Jacob’s humble approach, God moved Esau to welcome his brother home. The joy is unmistakable as seen in verse 4 of chapter 33,”Esau ran to meet him and embraced him…and kissed him and they wept.”

I believe it took 25 years for Jacob’s relationship with Laban to sour to the point Jacob wanted to go home. He needed to go home. It was so important that he was willing to risk it all to make the reconciliation happen. Several times during his stay with Laban he thought about and even desired to go home. He even tried to do so a couple of times but things just didn’t work out for him to do so. Things had to get bad for Jacob with Laban before he was willing to make that break! I guess that’s often the case with us too. Things have to get bad before we’re willing to humble ourselves and set some broken relationships right. They say that John Lennon was trying to get things right with his estranged family when he was murdered in New York. He waited too long!

Jacob spoke to Laban about the “fear” of Isaac and planted the seed that it was Abraham and Isaac’s God that was protecting him. In the hills Gilead, Laban had the fear of Isaac’s God as well and made a truce with Jacob sending him and his daughters away with hugs and kisses. Probably with a sigh of relief Jacob’s attention was turned from his father-in-laws pursuit of him from the north to his inevitable encounter with the brother in the south who he had cheated out of Isaac’s blessings. He sent messengers ahead to see what they could learn about his brother Esau. In Genesis 32:6, we read, “And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, ‘We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.’” Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as one commentator expressed it. But did that bother Jacob? Of course not! (Read some Sarcasm here please!). He had just been protected by God and bragged to his father-in-law that Abraham and Isaac’s God was looking out for him against any who might intend to do him harm. You’d think that he would have had more faith but the following verse, Genesis 32:7, says, “Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.”

It’s always easy to see How God has delivered us through our problems in the past. Hindsight is always 20/20. But I somehow don’t have the same confidence about the problems that are staring me in the face at the moment. My mother was right. “There is always something. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” You just get over one difficulty and you face another one. You get through one fear and there’s something else facing you. There’s always something else to be afraid of. Why was Jacob so brave to stand up to Laban but so afraid to face Esau. Maybe Guzik is right. He says, “This was because Jacob knew he was in the right with Laban, but he knew he was in the wrong with Esau.”¹ Shakespeare wrote in Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet, “ “Conscience does make cowards of us all.” Wow! How true is that? Like Jacob I believe my confidence and assurance is often hindered by my past. I’m thinking that’s not unusual for believers today and of every age. Indeed guilt makes cowards of us all! There might be a good reason for Jacob’s fear also. Before Jacob left home, after his brother swore to kill him, Rebekah told Jacob until your brother’s anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send and bring you from there (Genesis 27:45). Rebekah never sent for Jacob; therefore he had every reason to believe that Esau was still angry with him 20 years later.

Genesis 32:1-2 says that as Jacob went on his way from Laban, “… the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, ‘This is God’s camp!’ So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.” This is a good place to set up camp is what Jacob thought. It’s safe, I have God’s protection all around me. Even though Jacob saw the angels, he was afraid of Esau and the 400 soldiers that came with him. Jacob was still afraid. I like how Duguid wraps up this scene. He writes, “Do you see the message that God is trying to get across to Jacob? It is that he need not resort to slippery strategies in the face of obstacles, no matter how overwhelming they appear. Instead, he should trust in the unseen forces of God. Just as God had protected him against the wrath of Laban, so he could be trusted to protect him against any threat from Esau.”² But, Jacob, devised his own plan to protect himself from Esau. I often do the same thing with all the Labans and Esaus in my life. And my mother was right, “There is always something!”

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 32:7–8.

² Iain M. Duguid, Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace: The Gospel in the Lives of Isaac and Jacob, ed. Tremper Longman III and J. Alan Groves, The Gospel according to the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2002), 108.

Laban, Jacob’s uncle, had kissed him upon his arrival. That’s interesting because Jacob had kissed his father when he tricked him out of giving the blessing to Esau instead of himself. After Laban’s welcoming kiss, he proceeded to trick Jacob into marrying his oldest daughter after Jacob had served for 7 years to win Rachel. Laban then exacted another 7 years from Jacob to get Rachel. Besides this there were disputes between the two and Laban attempted to keep the richest parts of the flocks and harvests from Jacob. But God would have none of that. Genesis 30:43 says, “Thus the man (Jacob) increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.” However, don’t forget that Jacob was plotting to plot to mate the flock before some kind of reed that would guarantee their health and color. The blessing of prosperity and wealth came to Jacob, not because of his reeds and rods but because someone was watching over him. If Laban would have had his way, Jacob would never leave and would end up with little or nothing. Fortunately, as Boice observes, “Jacob had an ally who was open-handed, upright, straightforward, generous, and compassionate. His ally was God. The secret of Jacob’s success in working for Laban is that even in the unpleasant earthly relationship, he was really working for God, who would protect him and prosper his efforts.”

The Handbook for translators disagrees with Boice’s interpretation and thinks that his wealth had to do with his conniving nature associated with his name Jacob, which means trickster or supplant. It reads, “Thus the man grew exceedingly rich: thus marks a conclusion to this story, which has been told to explain that Jacob became a rich man because he was more clever than his uncle. We may say in English, for example, ‘And so it happened,’ ‘In this way,’ ‘By doing these things,’ ‘as a result.’ Grew … rich translates a Hebrew verb that describes something bursting or breaking forth, and so in this context describes Jacob’s wealth as developing suddenly and greatly.”¹ Regardless, both Laban and Jacob got what they deserved from each other. Ryle summarizes the contest between Jacob and Laban for us. He writes “In this passage and in the following chapter Laban is depicted in the Israelite narrative as the typical Aramaean, a crafty, selfish, grasping man of business. Jacob, however, in spite of Laban’s duplicity, prospers exceedingly. By greater cunning he outwits Laban himself, and God gives him protection and prosperity.”²

It seems that based on the promises that God had made to Abraham, Isaac and they passed on to Jacob, the wealth that Jacob acquired had much less to do with his own cleverness than it had to do with the promises of blessing that he tricked his father Isaac into giving to him rather than his brother Esau. Romans 9:13 makes it clear that God’s blessing was freely bestowed on Jacob not Esau. Why God chose Jacob over Esau was simply a matter of His promises to Abraham and Isaac. He could not go back on his promise. It wasn’t Jacob’s cleverness. Butler suggests, “Success accompanied the scheming but success did not result from the scheming. Sometimes when God blesses us in spite of ourselves, we have a tendency to credit some evil scheme.” ³

¹ William David Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1998), 705.

² Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version with Introduction and Notes, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), 306.

³ John G. Butler, Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis (Clinton, IA: LBC Publications, 2008), 301.

Rachel was beautiful alright and Jacob loved her dearly. Leah was rather plain and was basically unloved. God as much as said so and he chose to bless her specially with children whereas Rachel had none. Guzik is correct, he says, “Despite Rachel’s great beauty, she also was near despair. No doubt, Leah often said, ‘If I only had my sister’s beauty and the love of my husband, I would be happy.’ No doubt, Rachel often said, ‘If I only had sons like my sister.’ Beautiful or plain, we all have our problems.¹ Even beautiful women have their problems. Rachel, beautiful but barren, struggled with her sister for the continued affection of Jacob. Leah gave birth to four sons in a row; Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. Her struggle with Leah becomes so severe that In Genesis 30:1 Rachel screams to Jacob “give me children or I die!” As if Jacob can control who conceives and who does not. Jacob reminds her that he’s not in God’s place thus telling her that her problem is not with him, it’s really with God.

Rachel tries to fulfill her desire for children by using her hand maiden, Bilhah, who gives Jacob two sons. Rachel asks Jacob for him to go into Bilhah so she might deliver me a son “on my knees.” Unfortunately most translations ignore that phrase. On my knees refers to the custom where the husband impregnated the surrogate while the surrogate reclined on the lap of the wife, and how she might even recline on the wife as she gave birth. The symbolism clearly showed the child was legally the child of the mother, not the surrogate, who was merely in the place of the wife in both conception and birth. The Handbook for translators doesn’t think the phrase should be taken literally. It says, “That she may bear upon my knees is the literal Hebrew figurative expression and refers to the practice of obtaining children through the service of another woman, or of recognizing the child that is born as legally one’s own. In 50:23 Joseph’s grandchildren were “born upon his knees,” a way of saying that he acknowledged them as legitimate. In this case Rachel proposes to make Bilhah’s offspring her own, and thus she is to become the adoptive mother.”²

Regardless, the text says that Rachel is the one who named them. She named the first one “Dan,” which means “vindicated.” She thinks that somehow the birth of this surrogate son gives her the edge in her struggle with her plain but productive sister Leah. Then she names Bilhah’s second son, Naphthali. This literally means “my struggle.” Boice observes, “Some commentators refer this to Bilhah’s struggle in childbirth, which Rachel claims as her own. But this is not it at all. Rachel is struggling with Leah, and the additional baby is only another weapon in her arsenal. She is really hitting Leah over the head with him.” Jacob had made it clear that Rachel’s struggle was truly with God. He determines the lot of us all. When you don’t like it, you rebel against God. I believe God was using Rachel’s barrenness to humble her. Beautiful women sometimes grow up getting whatever they want and sometimes need to be reminded of their place. It’s easy to see the beautiful women as less spiritual as others. But as Boice observes, “It would be good if some women who are less favored outwardly could see that God is also concerned about those who are beautiful. The plain girls envy the beautiful ones, but the beautiful ones have problems of their own, and God does not look down on them as you or I might do.”

¹ David Guzik, Genesis, David Guzik’s Commentaries on the Bible (Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik, 2013), Ge 30:1–4.

² William David Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1998), 684.

Jacob got the blessing his father, Isaac, had intended for Esau. He got it by trickery. You might remember that “trickery” might even be the word that defines his name. Jacob means deceiver or trickster. There seems to be an interesting progression of Jacob’s deception. It begins by listening to his mother. He then impersonates his brother. Then he lies to his father. He then goes to the awful length of bringing the name of the Lord God into the deception. When Isaac questions the quickness of his returning with the food, Jacob says “because the Lord your God granted me success.” I don’t expect God smiled down on that. There’s always a progression. It begins with listening. Genesis 3, the first sin, began the same way. Eve listened to the serpent and Adam listened to his wife.

It’s interesting that a “kiss” is involved in the deceit. Genesis 27:26-27 tells us, “Then his father Isaac said to him (Jacob), Come near and kiss me, my son’ (thinking it was Esau) So he (Jacob) came near and kissed him.” Butler observes “Jacob had very affectionate manners in beguiling Isaac. His deceitful kissing of Isaac is one of the deceitful kisses recorded in the Bible. Joab kissed Amasa before he murdered him (II Samuel 20:9); the harlot kissed the young man before she destroyed his morals (Proverbs 7:13), and Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss (Matthew 26:48, 49). The devil has used kissing for ages to deceive and destroy.”¹

Faith Hill sings a song “This Kiss.” In the later chorus to the song she sings, “It’s the way you love me. It’s a feeling like this. It’s centrifugal motion. It’s perpetual bliss. It’s that pivotal moment. It’s, ah, subliminal. This kiss, this kiss (it’s criminal)…” Louis Armstrong also had a song about a kiss. It contained the phrase “A kiss is just a kiss.” Is it really? Jacob was to receive a couple kisses in his later life that might be compared to the one he gave his father to deceive him. Laban kissed Jacob and tricked him into marrying Leah instead of Rachel. Esau kissed Jacob when he returned to Canaan as well and their relationship remains strained as long as Edom existed. (King Herod was the last Edomite, descendant of Esau, mentioned in the Bible. Remember, a kiss is not always a kiss.

¹John G. Butler, Analytical Bible Expositor: Genesis (Clinton, IA: LBC Publications, 2008), 265.